MLA
NCC
NEWSLETTER
Music Library
Association Northern California Chapter
Vol. 17, no. 2 (Spring 2003)
Minutes of the MLA/NCC
Business Meeting of October 25,
2002
Alicia
Patrice, CSU Sacramento
Chapter Secretary
The
Northern California Chapter of the Music Library Association held its Fall 2002
meeting at the San Francisco Performing Arts Library & Museum and the San
Francisco Public Library. The morning
session included a presentation by Lee Cox of the SFPALM and gave a tour of the
facilities and provided an overview of their resources. The afternoon session was held in the SF
Public Library and Nancy Lorimer gave a presentation on changes coming to
AACR.
The
business meeting was held in the SF Public Library. Ray Heigemeir, Chair, called the meeting to order at 3:00
PM.
Present
were Ray Heigemeir (Stanford), Manuel Erviti (UC Berkeley), Jason Gibbs (San
Francisco Public Library), Alicia Patrice (CSU Sacramento), Nancy Lorimer
(Stanford), Richard Ross (SFSU, retired), Judy Clarence (CSU Hayward), Debbie
Smith (San Francisco Conservatory), Mike Irvine (College of Marin), Kathy Earl
(SJSU Library Student), Bridget Boylan (SF Public), Michael Colby (UC Davis),
Lee Cox (SF PALM), Rhonelle Runner (University of the Pacific), John Poole
(Poole Editions), and Jean Cunningham (Paramount Theatre Library).
Ray
thanked the IAML volunteers and reported that the IAML meeting at Berkeley
was a great success. $300 was donated to the general conference
fund.
Alicia
Patrice, Secretary/Treasurer, reported that there is a balance of $1,353.88 in
our account and dues were collected from the attending members.
Joint
meetings with other West Coast chapters have been postponed until further
notice. Members of all chapters
expressed interest, but the planning being done by the Pacific Northwest
chapter for the impending Vancouver meeting as well as the fact that some
chapters meet only once annually complicated the matter sufficiently that the
idea was put on hold. A brief
discussion of MLA/NCC hosting the meeting was held, but ultimately the issue
was tabled.
Various
changes to the by-laws were discussed.
Members agreed on wording for a First Time Attendees Grant. Wording will be sent out in the next
newsletter for a vote. The issue of
meeting a minimum of once a year (in the fall) was discussed at length. If this passed, a business meeting would be
held for the Board and the general members at the annual MLA conference. Of those in attendance, an informal vote
showed that the majority were not in favor of changing to meeting once a year. That issue was tabled. It was brought up that voting on a change of
by-laws can only be done in person at the meeting, as stated in the by-laws. It was expressed that proxy voting was
favorable and that change is desired to be added to the by-laws. This would give us the opportunity to vote
via email.
A
discussion was held as to whether we should plan to hold a chapter meeting at
the next national MLA meeting, but this was found to be undesirable by those
present. We will continue to gather for
an optional informal dinner.
Officers
next year: Due to the departure of Tony
Calvo, we are in need of a Vice-Chair, Chair-Elect. Manuel Erviti will assume the role of Chair, after the Fall 2002
meeting. Any interested parties should
contact the nominating committee (Nancy Lorimer, Sally Berlowitz, Manuel
Erviti, et al.). The position of
Secretary/Treasurer will be available after Spring 2003. Anyone interested in
joining the Nominating Committee is encouraged to contact Manuel.
Ray
Heigemeir passed the position of Chair to Manuel Erviti.
Round
Robin:
Jason
Gibbs, SF Public: The budget is staying
the same. Supervision of the Art and
Music Center has been assigned a new manager.
Bridget
Boylan, SF Public: Started 6 months ago
as Music Cataloger. She is working on cataloging
works by Bay Area composers from the Federal Music Project.
Kathy
Earl, SJSU Library School Student:
Formerly taught K-12 music, now retired; will do a practicum in Spring
2003 at American River College. She will
also finish her MLIS in Spring 2003.
Michael
Colby, UC Davis: The Mondavi Center for
the Arts is now open. The Library
budget has been reduced. They are
currently migrated to Aleph (Ex Libris) and customization is now
happening.
Ray
Heigemeir and Nancy Lorimer, Stanford University: Jerry McBride from Middlebury College will start as Head of the Music
Library next July. One position they
had hoped to also fill has been frozen by the University. Some cuts in the budget have occurred with
more expected next year. The second
half of Stravinsky letters and cards has been received by Stanford.
Michael
Irvine, College of Marin: The campus may
be sold, status is unknown. The College
of Fine Arts may stay in its current location while the rest moves.
Judy
Clarence, CSU Hayward: The new Library
Director has moved the music collection into the general stacks, much to the dismay
of the music department. There is now a
single desk for Media and Reserves. Music
reference materials are now in the general reference collection. The budget has been cut by 50%. Judy will be president of CARL next
year.
Jean
Cunningham, Paramount Theatre: The need
to establish the library on a secure, ongoing basis has arisen. Some support may hire a part-time
librarian. She distributed letter
seeking assistance from any interested parties in keeping the library intact.
John
Poole, Editions Poole: John is with
Oracle Corporation and is private collector of piano 4-hands and 2 piano
8-hands music. He builds tools for
management of document flow and moved from Pasadena three years ago. He has established a publishing company
called Editions Poole that scans music in a ready-to-print format.
Manuel
Erviti, UC Berkeley: Digging for the
new Library should begin soon; funding issues continue to delay the
project. It will take 13 months to
build. The move-in date should be
January 2004. 5000 books are being sent
to temporary storage during construction.
A new website should be launched in the coming months.
Alicia
Patrice, CSU Sacramento: There is
currently no library materials budget, though one should be forthcoming
soon. The collection from the music department
library should be integrated into the general library’s collection soon.
Ray
adjourned the meeting, passed the baton to Manuel, at 4:50 PM.
Respectfully
submitted,
Alicia Patrice
New Head of Music Library
At Stanford
It is with great pleasure that I announce that,
after an absence of several years, Jerry McBride is returning to California as
Head of the Music Library at Stanford University. Currently the Music Librarian
at Middlebury College in Vermont, Jerry previously worked as an archivist at
the Arnold Schoenberg Institute at the University of Southern California. He received his undergraduate degree from
University of the Redlands, his masters from the University of Wisconsin - Madison
and his MLS from Kent State.
The Music Library is very pleased that Jerry
accepted the position, and we wait impatiently for his arrival in July. If you have not already done so, please join
us in welcoming Jerry back to California.
Submitted by Nancy Lorimer
News of Members
Rhonelle Runner is the new Music/ Humanities
librarian at University of the Pacific, in Stockton. She comes to us from southern California, where she held
part-time jobs at Occidental College, Pasadena City College, and the Brand
Library. Formerly active in MLA/SCC,
Rhonelle looks forward to getting to know more NCC members, and becoming more
involved in our chapter. Her
professional interests include reference, assessment, and cataloging.
When she's not working at the library, Rhonelle
likes to shop, clean and spend time with her family. She is still pursuing a degree in Musicology at USC, so she does
spend some time studying, too. Her
areas of research interest include early music, opera & musical theatre,
and cultural studies. Despite all this,
she tries to have a sense of humor.
After all, laughter can work wonders.
MLA/NCC
Spring 2003 Meeting
Friday, May 2, 2003
10:15 AM - 4:30 PM
Berkeley Public Library
You are cordially invited to the Spring Meeting of the Northern
California Chapter of the Music Library Association held at the recently
renovated Berkeley Public Library. Our
morning session will include an introduction to music resources and programs of
the BPL by Pat Mullan, Supervising Librarian for Art and Music. Following a public concert of vocal music
(arranged by the library to coincide with our meeting) and lunch at a local
restaurant, we will re-convene at BPL for an informal talk by Manuel Erviti, UC
Berkeley, on the process of identifying the composer of a mystery score with
San Francisco Bay Area connections. The day will conclude with a business
meeting and the traditional round robin.
10:15 a.m.: Coffee and
Pastries, Berkeley Public Library, Third Floor Meeting Room
11:00-12:00: Tour of BPL with Pat
Mullan, Supervising Librarian, Art and Music
12:15-1:00: Public Concert by
vocal group, Solstice BPL, Reading
Room
12:45-1:45: Lunch at a Local
Restaurant
2:00-2:45: “Identifying a Bay
Area Mystery Score,” by Manuel Erviti, BPL, Third Floor Meeting Room
3:00-4:30: Business Meeting and
Round Robin, Third Floor Meeting Room
A reminder that we will vote at our Spring meeting on a proposed change
to the NCC Constitution and By-Laws reflecting the addition of a first-timer’s
grant (below in BOLD):
CONSTITUTION AND
BY-LAWS
ARTICLE I: NAME
ARTICLE II: PURPOSES
ARTICLE III: MEMBERSHIP
A. Qualifications for membership.
B. Privileges of members.
By-Laws to Article III:
Membership
A. Dues
B. The membership year shall be from September 1 to August 31
Add:
C. Outreach.
1. First-time Attendees Grant.
In order to encourage new membership, MLA/NCC may provide monetary compensation
for travel and meal expenses to one or more first-time attendees to a chapter
meeting. Applications are encouraged from music librarians,
paraprofessional staff, library and/or music students, and others who are not
necessarily music librarians but work in a related field. The Executive
Board will review letters of application submitted prior to the chapter
meeting. More than one grant may be awarded
CHAPTER
OFFICERS
Chair
Manuel
Erviti
240
Morrison Hall
University
of California at Berkeley Berkeley, CA 94720
(510)
643-6197
merviti@library.berkeley.edu
Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect
Presently vacant
Past Chair
Ray
Heigemeir
Music
Cataloger
Braun
Music Center, 541 Lasuen Mall
Stanford
University
Stanford,
CA 94305-3076
(650)
725-1148
raymondh@stanford.edu
Secretary/Treasurer
Alicia
Patrice
Fine Arts Librarian
California State University,
Sacramento
Sacramento, CA 95819-6039
(916) 278-7999
alicias@csus.edu
Newsletter Editor
Jason
Gibbs
Art
and Music Center
San
Francisco Public Library
Civic
Center
San
Francisco, CA 94102
(415)
557-4525
jasong@sfpl.org
The House of "Moonlight and Roses": San
Francisco's Villa Moret, Inc.
By Nan Bostick (grand niece and biographer of Charles N. Daniels)
On September 15, 1924 a full page ad appeared in the San Francisco Examiner announcing the opening of Villa Moret, Inc. Music Publishers, headquartered above the Pantages theater in the Kress building, 935 Market Street, San Francisco.[1] The ad described the opening as something "extraordinary to the Western musical world," and, in fact, it was unique. New York City dominated the music publishing industry. San Francisco's Sherman, Clay & Co was the West Coast's only successful competitor, but Sherman Clay was primarily a music and instrument retailer. Villa Moret was the West Coast's first highly capitalized ($1,000,000) publishing house devoted exclusively to the publication of popular and semi-classical music.[2]
The ad also claimed that Villa Moret was the only firm "in the world composed of musical artistes [sic]." In support of this claim, photographs of stellar San Francisco talents, all part of the Villa Moret "galaxy," framed the text of the announcement.
Alfred Hertz, conductor of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, was shown as the Director of the Advisory Board on Classical Music. Lillian Birmingham, President of the California Federation of Music Clubs and a prominent contralto and operatic vocal coach, chaired the Committee on Semi-classical Music. Mynard Jones, the Basso-Cantante professor at San Francisco's Arrillaga Musical College, was Editor of Choral Music. Marco Wolf, head of the famous Fanchon & Marco vaude-film production company, headed up the Advisory Board on Productions. George Lipshultz, violinist, musical director, and conductor of the popular orchestra at Loew's Warfield Theater, chaired the Committee on Orchestration. Gino Severi, another prominent Lowe theater orchestra director (famed for his Sunday morning concerts at the California Theater in San Francisco) was in charge of the Committee on Photo-play Music. Paul Ash, teen idol at the Granada (who, with his Synco-Symphonists, pioneered the personality band leader phenomena of the 1920s), chaired the Committee on Popular Music. Ben Black, leader of the orchestra at the California Theater was Villa Moret's vice-president and professional manager. He would be chiefly responsible for promoting the firm's music to the leading orchestras, recording artists, and vaudeville stars of the day.[3]
Villa Moret's President was Charles N. Daniels, better known as the composer Neil Moret, thus Villa Moret, literally the house of Moret.[4] As Neil Moret, he first came to prominence in 1901 when John Philip Sousa turned his tune, "Hiawatha," into an international sensation. At the time, Daniels was a young upstart publisher in Kansas City, Missouri. The success of "Hiawatha" led to a stunning career in Detroit as editorial director for Jerome H. Remick, Inc. Daniels helped turn that firm into one of largest sheet music publishers in the world, but in 1913, due to the failing health of his five-year-old daughter, Daniels resigned and moved his family to California in an unsuccessful attempt to save his daughter's life.
During the teens, San Francisco was the only real musical center in California, so Daniels opted to start afresh there.[5] He created several hits with Harry Williams, a Remick lyricist ("Under the Shade of the Old Apple Tree" etc.) who had moved to California to direct silent films for Mack Sennett. In 1918 the two originated the idea of using pop music to promote a film. They wrote a title song for Mack Sennett's "Mickey," starring Mabel Normand, turning the tune into a nationwide hit a full year before the release of the highly successful film. Thus began Hollywood's interest in the pop tune business, eventually resulting in an enormous migration of east coast songwriters to Hollywood.[6]
On May 15, 1922, Harry Williams, age 43, died unexpectedly while visiting the Daniels' home in Oakland.[7] Already devastated by the negative effect WWI and the influenza epidemic had on music sales, Daniels sold his firm and worked as a free-lance composer with his two friends, Art Hickman and Ben Black. They succeeded in placing tunes with good publishers, but that wasn't enough for Daniels. Determined to create "a distinctly Western music publishing house to encourage and give voice to Western musical genius,"[8] Daniels spent the next two years amassing capital to start Villa Moret.
The goals of Villa Moret, Inc. were lofty:
To carry on the trade or business of producing, publishing and selling sheet music and other music of all descriptions, of publishing and producing plays, dramas, musical comedies, vaudeville sketches and to do anything and everything pertaining to the musical art or profession and pertaining to the theatrical art or profession; to organize and maintain bands and orchestras; …and to establish and maintain branches and agencies… To my knowledge, the Villa Moret founders satisfied only two of those goals. They were amazingly successful at producing hit tunes and they established branches in key musical centers throughout the country.
"Although only two months in the field," wrote a Metronome reporter in January, 1925, "this million-dollar institution has published three distinct hits: 'Nancy,' [Moret/Black] 'On the Way to Monterey,' [Moret/Black] and 'Wait ‘till the Morning After' [Richard Whiting and Raymond Egan…"[10]...these songs have already been recorded by Victor, Vocalion, Gennett and Okeh. Music rolls have been prepared by Q. R. S. Vocalstyle, Aeolian, Pinaostyle and Melodie."[11]
The same article mentioned that four composers were recently added to Villa Moret's semi-classical department. I have yet to verify this information or to locate Villa Moret editions of semi-classical works. I suspect it became readily apparent that producing hit tunes was the most effective way to expand, profit, and satisfy the shareholders.[12]
In the summer of 1925, Daniels and Ben Black were visiting a resort in New Almaden (near San Jose, CA) and hit upon the idea of adapting Edwin Lemare's classic "Andantino in D Flat for Violin and Organ" as fox trot. Daniels, who was forever accused of stealing the song, explained the story as such:
I always loved this old melody, written and published 30 years before my inspiration. At night [at the New Almaden resort], an indifferent violin, piano and drums played for the dancing, and one night the violinist used the 'Andantino' as a fill in. Several couples tried to dance to the concert rhythm and of course, it was a sad job. However, the thought struck me that this old melody, so beloved but never commercialized, might make a swell melody fox trot. I had been nursing the title, 'Moonlight and Roses,' for years. The two suddenly tied themselves together and the popular song was born. I immediately got in touch with Mr. Lemare, then municipal organist at Chattanooga, Tenn.,[13] and got his permission to make this adaptation. I didn’t have to share this number with Lemare, for the 'Andantino' was in the public domain, not copyrighted in this country, and Lemare had sold the original 'Andantino' for one pound ($5) to a London publisher. To make this story shorter, we paid Lemare many thousands of dollars in royalties, and while 'Moonlight and Roses,' killed the identity of the 'Andantino,' it helped Mr. Lemare to reap the harvest that his glorious melody deserved.[14]
Ben Black rewrote Daniels' original "Moonlight and Roses" lyrics to fit Lemare's melody, thus receiving the other third of the royalties. Rated as the biggest hit ballad of the 1925 song season,[15] its popularity allowed Villa Moret to establish offices in 11 other principal cities by March, 1926,[16] including New York City, where Villa Moret's next hit tune promotion tied up traffic on Broadway.
To publicize "Thanks for the Buggy Ride" (1925), Jules Buffano's new novelty tune, Villa Moret's New York staff decked an old-fashioned horse and buggy with huge song cover posters and employed two vaudevilleans[17] to drive it along Broadway, singing the song and offering pedestrians free buggy rides during peak traffic hours. According to one report, "The stunt was photographed by the Pathe News, International News Service, the New York Times, and the Wide World Photo Service and as a result the 'Buggy Song' received publicity in over 500 daily newspapers."[18]
Meanwhile, the professional staff in all 12 Villa Moret offices prepared to announce "National Buggy Ride Week," as described below. It truly paid to have key band leaders, theater organists, vaude-film producers, and performers advising, staffing, and supporting Villa Moret, for here's what it took to promote a tune to hit status during the roaring 20s.
Broadcasting bands played the number, cabaret performers sang it, dance hall bands featured and costumed it, autos and buggies East, West, North and South carried banners and placards, vaudeville artists and orchestras on the Keith-Albee, Loew, Pantages, and Orpheum circuits, all co-operated to make "Buggy Ride" the most talked of song in the entire country, a national anthem. Organists in the picture houses and presentation acts, all helped with the aid of slides and other novel ways of producing a song in character. It was also used as a big feature in the Ringling Bros-Barnum & Bailey Circus at the New Madison Square Garden, by Merle Evans and his band, during a special "Buggy Ride" scene in which the congress of clowns took part. Villa Moret, Inc. "The House of Moonlight and Roses," of San Francisco is now recognized as one of the leading hit publishers of the country, "Moonlight and Roses" and "Thanks for the Buggy Ride" being number one sellers in the music trade.[19]
By 1926 Villa Moret took up two complete floors of the Kress building. The San Francisco office handled all music shipments west of Denver. A second center was established in Chicago to handle all eastern shipments.[20] The three big hits for 1926 were "Lay My Head Beneath a Rose" a tearful ballad by Grant Falkenstein and W. Madison, of Falkenstein Music Co. Fresno, CA; "There Ain't No Maybe In My Baby's Eyes" by the well known hit producers, Walter Donaldson, Gus Kahn and Raymond Egan; and "When You Waltz With The One You Love" by Al Sherman and Charles O'Flynn. But none of these writers worked exclusively for Villa Moret. To stay competitive, the firm needed sole rights to the works of top hit composers.
Worried about what that would cost, Daniels rolled up his sleeves, donned his Neil Moret hat, and churned out the firm's biggest hits. His 1927 and 1928 successes included: "Song of the Wanderer," "Chlo-e, Song of the Swamp," with Gus Kahn, (which Spike Jones parodied), "Persian Rug," with Gus Kahn, and "An Old Guitar and an Old Refrain," with Gus Kahn and Ben Black, "Ready for the River" with Gus Kahn, "She's Funny That Way," with Richard Whiting, and "You Tell Me Your Dream" (a re-issue of his own 1899 hit with new lyrics by Gus Kahn).[21]
The firm also gained exclusive rights to tunes composed and popularized by several radio personalities, including Merton H. Bories of KPO, Hugh Barrett Dobbs of NBC, and western performer, Harry "Mac" McClintock of KFRC."[22]
In 1929 Daniels and the Villa Moret directors were at odds. With the advent of sound movies, or "talkies," Daniels insisted that Villa Moret establish a key office in Los Angeles, correctly predicting that Hollywood would soon become the new center of the pop music trade. Unfortunately, the directors were unwilling to expend sufficient resources in that direction, so Daniels uprooted his family and moved to Hollywood himself. Instead of composing, he focused on making Villa Moret a presence within the movie industry while presiding over the firm from a distance.[23] Villa Moret published at least 32 songs that year, but only one was a big hit: "When It's Springtime In the Rockies," a tune Daniels purchased from Utah's Mary Hale Woolsey, Robert Sauer, and Milt Taggart. Popularized by several top performers, including Rudy Valle, this simple waltz ballad was in total contrast to the sophisticated, heavily exploited songs of the screen, but it hit a responsive note with the public and became the sensation of several music seasons.[24]
While in Los Angeles, Daniels discovered that Paul Corbell, Villa Moret's treasurer, was selling junk bonds to Villa Moret investors from Daniels' own San Francisco office. It was right before the October 1929 stock market crash. Infuriated and highly alarmed that he might be held responsible for the consequences, Daniels tried to resign from the firm. But due to corporation stipulations, he was stuck being Villa Moret's president for two more years. In a panic, Daniels transferred all his personal accounts and financial assets to his son, Neil Moret Daniels, a music student at Columbia University, and basically hid out in Los Angeles having as little to do with the firm as possible.[25]
In June, 1931 Metronome's West Coast representative reported: “In the same edifice which seems to house every music publisher in San Francisco with the exception of Sherman Clay, namely the Kress Building, are also the offices of Villa Moret. But there appears to be comparatively little activity in the house which produced such hits as 'Springtime in the Rockies' and 'Chlo-e.'"[26] In the same column, this seemingly unrelated statement appeared: "…heard muchly over the air here is the new tune, ‘I’m Gonna Get You,’…by the mysterious Jules Lemare." Charles Daniels was the mysterious Jules Lemare. It was under this name that he created his most enduring hit, "Sweet and Lovely," (1931) published by Robbins Music Corporation, New York.[27]
By the mid 1930s, the major movie studios bought out most of the prominent music publishing houses. Villa Moret was sold to Universal. Daniels spent his remaining years composing and working as a publishing advisor, mainly for Robbins Music Corporation. After a long bout with nephritis, he died in Compton, CA January 24, 1943 at age 64.
[1] San Francisco Examiner September 15, 1924, 9.
[2] With the exception of individual composers publishing under their own imprint, such as San Francisco's Nat Goldstein, virtually every western music producer was a retailer. Publisher Henry Grobe, for example, ran a highly respected San Francisco full product music emporium. [Adrian] Reese and [Karl] Fuhrman, SF, owned the sheet music counter at San Francisco's Kohler & Chase, while the [Gene] Florentine Music Co. occupied the "live music" counter at the Clark Wise Piano Co. of San Francisco.
[3] Before leading his own orchestra, Ben Black played banjo in Art Hickman's pioneering St. Francis Hotel band and worked in the professional department of Sherman, Clay & Co.
[4] Paul I. Corbell was the firm's Secretary and Treasurer. Robert G. Watts served as general sales manager. The chief staff arranger was Emil Breitenfeld, organist at the California Theater, and arranger for Paul Ash, Max Dolin, and other local conductors. "Take Five" composer Paul Desmond, star saxophonist with Dave Brubeck, was a Villa Moret "brat." He was Emil Breitenfeld's son.
[5] In 1914 he established Charles N. Daniels, Music Publisher. In 1917 he added a partner, Weston Wilson, a young songwriter and Stanford graduate (1914), and renamed the firm Daniels & Wilson.
[6] See "Westward the Course: Why Mammy's Boys — the Song-writers — Are Shouting 'California, Here I Come!,'" Photoplay September, 1929, 38+.
[7] Death Certificate, Harry Hiram Williams, County of Alameda, CA. Cause of death: septicemia.
[8] San Francisco Examiner September 15, 1924, 9.
[10] During his Jerome Remick days, Daniels was mentor to the famed Whiting/Egan song-writing team. Similar connections made it possible for Daniels to fill the Villa Moret catalog with songs by other veteran tunesmiths, including Vincent Rose, Harry Owens, Arthur Freed, Ballard McDonald, Byron Gay, Haven Gillespie, Seymore Simon, Walter Donaldson, and Gus Kahn.
[11] Metronome January 1, 1925, 86.
[12] The composers were: Theresa del Riego of London, Mary Hellen Brown and Mary Turner Salter of New York City, and Charles Huerter of Syracuse, NY.
[13] Englishman Edwin Lemare was San Francisco's "Official Organist" at Exposition Auditorium until 1921, having originally been hired to perform on the same organ (and supervise its installation) at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco.
[14] Letter of Feb. 9, 1938 to E. A. McFaul, Detroit, MI. Chas. N. Daniels Collection, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY.
[15] Metronome January 15, 1926, 54.
[16] Billboard March 20, 1926, 41.
[17] They were Rae Samuels, "The Blue Streak of Vaudeville," and Chick Yorke of the vaudeville team of Yorke and King.
[18] Metronome March 15, 1926, 48 (article includes photograph of the buggy).
[19] Metronome May 1, 1926, 63.
[20] Billboard February 27, 1926, 21.
[21]Villa Moret also had good success with a hot number called "Slue-Foot" (Joe Sanders and Al Lewis); a calmer piece, "Moonlit Waters" (Cliff Friend and Nacio Herb Brown), and a novelty piece, "Gonna Get a Girl" (Howard Simon, Paul Ash, and Al Lewis).
[22]"Mac" McClintock's Villa Moret hits included: "Hallelujah I'm a Bum!," "In the Big Rock Candy Mountain," and "The Bum’s Song."
[23] Collaborating with Byron Gay, Daniels had already produced two successful Villa Moret movie themes: "Rose of Monterey (1927) for the First National film "Rose of the Golden West" starring Mary Astor and Gilbert Roland, and "Your Good-bye Kiss" (1928) for the Mack Sennett film, "The Good-bye Kiss."
[24] Cross, Sylvester L., "Successful Song Writing," Popular Song Writer March, 1936, 27.
[25] Information gathered through interviews with Neil Moret Daniels in 1997.
[26] Grandy, Edwin T. “On the Hollywood Coast” column, Metronome June, 1931, 24.
[27] The words were penned by Daniels' new lyricist, the young Harry Tobias. Gus Arnheim, leader of the celebrated Coconut Grove Orchestra at the Los Angeles Ambassador Hotel, originally popularized the tune by making it the theme of his weekly radio broadcast, thus sharing credit, and royalties, as co-composer. He had nothing to do with composing the piece.